


we are ever in the arms of our exile

by minarchy



Series: i have no need to pray [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Canonical Character Death, Christmas, Demons, Family, Gen, Holidays, Psychic Abilities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-27
Updated: 2011-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-28 06:57:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/305046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minarchy/pseuds/minarchy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It had been three years since Tony Stark had fallen off the edge of the world, and the world had forgotten him, except in the occasional conspiracy theory. Of all the people in all the world, though, Pepper Potts could still find him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we are ever in the arms of our exile

**Author's Note:**

> and the metal continued tick-ticking though the engine was off

  


Pepper was one of the few people that Tony knew before his parents died; not only down to the fact that most people didn't hang around Tony long enough to make it to an anniversary, but also because Howard and Maria's deaths severed an entire section from Tony's life, like a thick, black line between _then_ and _now_.

He knew Pepper because he had been recommended to her by the third medium he'd visited in an attempt to figure out how to help end his own personal haunting.

"You want to get rid of him?" Pepper had asked, staring over Tony's shoulder with a look of disapproval and disgust.

"No!" Tony said, feeling Jarvis draw himself upright at the suggestion; Tony had always imagined him as a tall, thin, blond man, permenantly in a grey two-piece suit, and he held tightly enough to the image that he refused to hear a description of him by anyone who could actually see him. "No," he repeated, his collar feeling too tight and resisting the urge to shuffle his feet when Pepper turned her gaze on him – and it wasn't his imagination that she saw too much, because, hello, psychic. "I just – I want to help him. He's not supposed to be here, is he?" he added. "I mean, _ghost_." He waved his arm in the general direction of where he felt Jarvis was standing, as if to help his explanation and wipe the unimpressed expression from Pepper's face.

Pepper's mouth thinned but turned up in the corners, as if she was pressing back on a smile. She looked back at Jarvis, her gaze flicking over him; and, just as abruptly, snapped it back to Tony.

"No can do," she said. "Whatever's keeping you behind," she continued, to Jarvis (and that made Tony feel an awful lot better about her, because none of the others had spoken to Jarvis as if he were really there, instead directing all their comments to Tony like he was Jarvis' conduit, or whatever. Like the slight handicap of being dead meant that Jarvis had suddenly become deaf), "it's not something that I can just wish away. Looks like you're hanging around for a while yet."

The wave of relief was strong enough that Tony was certain that Pepper would have noticed it even without the ESP; it eased the tightness around his eyes and his mouth and the knots in his shoulders and the small of his back.

"You hear that, Jarvis?" he said, as they walked side-by-side towards the subway, people stepping through Jarvis and knocking into Tony (and that was one of the reasons that Tony loved this area of New York City, because no one knew or cared that he was Howard Stark's son and he was walking the streets alone and unguarded; that he was Howard Stark's son with bruises under his eyes to match the one on corner of his jaw where his neck met his ear; that he was Howard Stark's son and he had fingermarks on his neck and needletracks in the crook of his elbow; no one looked at him twice because no one cared and it was _wonderful_ ). "You're not going anywhere."

" _Merry Christmas, Tony_ ," Jarvis said, as Tony slumped down into a seat and leant his head back against the scored and graffittied window.

"Yeah," Tony said, smiling even as he closed his eyes. "Merry Christmas, Jarvis."

 

Howard and Maria Stark died on the 14th of December that followed Tony's seventeenth birthday. The official report said that the brakes had failed and that, coupled with the ice on the road, had been what sent the car over the side of the road and into the river, but everyone thought otherwise. Everyone knew that Howard had been drunk and Maria had been crying and that was why he had lost control and killed them both. Tony heard them whispering it at the funeral.

They were buried on Christmas Eve. Greg was permitted special leave in order to return for the funeral, and joined Tony and Obadiah as pall-bearers. Whispers followed them for the entire day, questions about the company and the inquiry that Obi fielded, expertly as ever. Even left alone, the brothers didn't exchange a single word. It was the last time Tony saw him.

It was Pepper that Tony called. She came, and sat with him as he went over the wreckage and the schematics, pointing out the areas where he had seen things that shouldn't be there; how the brakes must have been sabotaged _somehow_ because they were in perfect working order except for the fact that they _hadn't_ worked. She came, and listened to what he said, and looked at what he asked her to.

"Aren't you going to tell me to stop looking for things that aren't there?" he said, tired and dry, his mouth rank with the film of coffee that a week without sleeping had accumulated over his tongue. Pepper gave him a look that clearly informed him of how ridiculous she thought that idea was, tempered with something more akin to affection than pity.

"That would be rather spectacularly hypocritical, don't you think?" she said. Tony loved her, in that moment, and more in the next, when she pulled the remnants of a hex bag from a battered segment of the brake system. She held it up for him to see. "I'm sorry," she said, "but someone murdered your parents."

"No," Tony said, "don't be sorry. This is good. This means there's someone to blame."

 

It had been three years since Tony Stark had fallen off the edge of the world, and the world had forgotten him, except in the occasional conspiracy theory. Of all the people in all the world, though, Pepper Potts could still find him.

His skin felt like it was cracking in the cold, and he could feel the chillblains beginning in his toes and his fingertips. The diner was warm and occupied beyond the point where they would stand out, but not to the point of discomfort; coffee appeared on the table without a spoken order – because it was winter, one more sleep to Santa, what else could anyone possibly want when they turn up at a motel diner in a mud-covered '66 Mustang with a chipped paint job.

Pepper sat down opposite him, and pushed a cup towards him. Tony looked at it, blearily, blinking against the swell of bruising around his eye. The heat melted the scabbing on his lips, attaching his skin to the dry, cheap ceramic. When the coffee spilled, a little, over his mouth, it stang and seared in the open wounds.

He set it down, and lit a cigarette. The paper stuck to the skin, coming away with the filter stained with dark splotches of blood.

"I know what you're going to say," Tony began.

"Really? And here I thought there was only one psychic in the room." Pepper was looking at him like she could see into his soul; Tony was more than tempted to blame that on the fact that she was, in fact, psychic, but it was more because she was just Pepper. He couldn't hold her gaze.

"Anthony Edward Stark," she said. "I know you better than any person alive, probably, and I know that there's something very wrong going on in your head. I also know better than to ask you what it is – but you're _grieving_ , Tony, and throwing yourself headfirst into suicide jobs isn't going to make that go away."

Tony looked at her, and smiled; but it felt wrong on his face, lopsided and twisted and he could feel the fractures forming around his eyes.

"You know," he said. "Don't make me say it."

Pepper didn't, because she was more than Tony could ever deserve. Instead, she reached across the table and took his hand, where it sat loose on the cheap, sticky vinyl next to his cup. They sat like that, in silence, whilst their coffee cooled and the waitresses, harried and tired and irked at having to work Christmas Eve as they were, looked on with smiles in their eyes. A soft woman, they thought, for a broken man.

If only they knew.

"I miss him, Pep," Tony said, quietly. "I miss him, so much."

Pepper squeezed his hand, tightening her fingers around his palm. "I know," she said. She did not look over his shoulder, to the space to his right made obvious to the two of them purely by its glaring emptiness. She did not look, Tony was sure, because she didn't want to see it, that ache that Tony felt and kept close in the black box next to his heart; or perhaps because she knew that Tony hadn't been quite able to lock the pain away, yet. "I know."

Tony huffed a laugh, shaking his head and wiping his eyes dry with his sleeve caught in his fist. He squeezed her hand, once, before letting it go, and tangling a loose curl of her hair around his fingers.

"I preferred you red," he said. Pepper rolled her eyes at him, and flicked his hand away.

"Yes, well," she said. "Maybe when you get on the wrong side of coven, you can die your hair blonde too."

"Nah," Tony said, "I couldn't pull it off."

"What's this?" Pepper said. "Is Tony Stark admitting that I'm prettier than him?"

Tony grinned, lopsided but more genuine, this time. "Never," he said. "And always." He picked up his coffee, his gaze suddenly serious. "If you're in trouble," he said, "I can –"

Pepper shook her head. "I don't think so, Tony," she said. "You, against a full coven of witches? I might as well shoot you now. Besides," she added, "Natasha is already working on it." Tony choked and almost sprayed his mouthful of coffee across the table.

"'Natasha'?" he repeated. "Tasha Romanoff?"

In Tony's opinion, Pepper seemed far too pleased with the expression on his face. "Unless you know another," she said, half-raising one eyebrow. "She's far more capable of taking care of my problems that you are, Tony, and you know it."

"Yeah, well," Tony said. "Ivan Petrovich. She has an advantage."

Pepper laughed into her cup. "Of course," she said, obviously humouring him. "An advantage."

"Don't you patronise me, woman," Tony said, humour curling around his words like it hadn't for days. Pepper, breaking her impeccable facade of professionalism, stuck her tongue out at him.

"You should go visit Barnes for Chistmas," Pepper said. Tony's mouth sank into a hard, sideways line. "Tony," Pepper added, warningly. "It'll do you both good to not talk about things and be all macho with whiskey. You can try to get an angle on the Petrovich advantage."

Tony huffed a laugh. Outside, snow started to fall.

 

The first thing that Tony knew of Loki's visit was when he stepped out of the bathroom to see Loki flicking through the TV channels and Thor sitting on his bed.

"The _fuck_ –" He didn't drop his towel, but it was a close run thing.

"Anthony Stark!" Thor boomed, cheerfully, and Tony was very glad he was not hungover. "It is good to see thee in more opportune circumstances."

"Yeah, well," Tony said, scrubbing his hand over his face. "I'm not really at my best after being knocked through a tree."

To his credit, Thor looked slightly abashed, even though it was Loki that had thrown him. Tony tugged the remote control from Loki's hands, as though that would stop him from operating the television; the look he received told him quite clearly what Loki thought of his attempts restrain him.

"We have come to visit for the festive season!" Thor said, bouncing happily on the bed. His enthusiasm didn't seem to be diminished in the slightest by the distinct lack of anything even slightly festive in the motel room, which really shouldn't be surprising to Tony at this point.

"Okay," Tony said. "Whatever. Happy Christmas, then."

"Technically," Loki said, having managed to get the television to play something that Tony was certain wasn't on his pay-per-view packet, "we're Nordic gods; and despite your cultures impressive attempts to force pagan rituals into your traditions, we don't celebrate Christmas."

Thor shot Loki a disapproving look (which wasn't particularly disapproving, in Tony's book, considering how Thor reminded him of a large, weather-controlling golden retriever).

"Happy Saturnalia, then," Tony said.

"Roman," Loki said.

"Fuck you," Tony said.

Loki grinned. "That seems more in the spirit of the season," he said, and Tony wondered when, precisely, this became his life.

Thor settled himself back against the wall. Tony tried not to notice how he took up the entire bed even sitting mostly upright. "So, Anthony Stark," he said. "What plans dost thee have for celebration?"

"Does he always speak like that?" Tony said to Loki, who shrugged fluidly with one shoulder.

"I am not his keeper," he said. Tony rolled his eyes.

"My study of your traditions informs me that there should be much feasting and merriment and an air of good will," Thor said.

"My traditions tend to consist more of getting drunk and watching crap TV," Tony said.

"A drinking contest!" Thor said. "This shall be just recompense for the lack of feasting."

"You probably shouldn't have mentioned alcohol," Loki said.

"Come, Anthony Stark; we will drink together and make our ancestors proud!"

Tony shook his head, but pulled the bottle of whiskey out of his bag, and pulled three chipped mugs out of the sideboard. "Bottoms up," he said.

 

The ground was frozen solid, which meant that it had taken Tony three times as long to scratch a hole deep enough to bury the box in; but he'd managed it eventually. Whiskey was an excellent barrier against the cold, even if it did encourage hypothermia, and the bottle was edging towards half-empty and Tony was sidling towards a pleasant high when the shadows shifted and Coulson finally arrived.

"About fucking time," Tony said. "Call this customer service? I've been freezing my ass off out here."

"Merry Christmas, Mr Stark," Coulson said, smiling with everything but his eyes.

"Cut the crap, Coulson," Tony said. "You know what I want."

Coulson sighed. "Are we going to have to go through this every year?" he asked. "I have clients waiting who actually have something to bargain with."

He turned away, made to step back into the shadows and, presumably, back to wherever he spent most of his time (because Tony knew for an almost-fact that he didn't often head back to Hell), when Tony raised the gun.

"Please," Coulson said, without turning around. "Do you really expect me to believe that that's the real Colt? Especially considering that particular gun was last used in Wyoming."

"You know where the Colt is?"

"Currently in the possession of the Winchesters."

Tony scowled and shrugged, tossing his replica off into the shadows. It wasn't like it was his, anyway; and the museum wouldn't miss it. Probably. "This is useless, then."

Coulson turned around. "Stark," he said. "It's Christmas Day. As much as I enjoy your company, I'm sure Mrs Potts-Hogan is awaiting your presence for dinner."

Tony grinned at him. "By ‘enjoy', you mean ‘detest', right?"

Coulson gave him a look, which only made Tony's smile broader.

"If I didn't know better," he said. "I would say that you keep calling me because you're _lonely_ , and summoning a crossroads demon is the only certain way to have someone to talk to." Tony bit the inside of his mouth, smile turning hard. Coulson's spread into something sadistic and amused; which, to be fair, was his normal expression. "But I know for a fact that, as much as you like to pretend otherwise, you do actually have people who are _willing_ to spend time with you."

Tony blinked at him. "Is this some sort of revenge for summoning you when I don't have a soul to barter?" he asked.

Of course, he didn't get an answer. Coulson just smiled at him, and Tony had the distinct impression that, if it wasn't that he would ruin his suit, Coulson would be more than happy to flay him alive.

"Merry Christmas, Coulson," he said, instead.

"Merry Christmas, Stark," Coulson said, and was gone.

Tony's phone rang. It was Pepper.

"If you aren't here in half an hour, Happy gets your yams."


End file.
